Americans All

"I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and have instilled in him a terrible resolve". -- Imperial Admiral Yamamoto December 1941 following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

This week it seems that much of the world has spent a great deal of time in front of their television sets watching the horrific aftermath of the terrorist attack that was designed to demoralize and frighten the American people. It is obvious that the madmen who perpetrated these acts have spent a great deal of time in planning and training for their act of cowardice. It is equally obvious that they spent little time in the study of the history of the United States of America. If they had, they would have known that their act would have quite the opposite effect from from what they intended.

In fact, you might say that we owe the madmen of the world, such as Osama bin Laden, a measure of thanks. Prior to these intolerable acts, America was indeed "The Great Melting Pot". We were a country comprised of Blacks, Whites, Asians, Hispanics and my own people, the American Indian. America was peopled with Catholics, Protestants, Mormon, Jews, Moslems, Buddhists and any other religious designation you can bring to mind. We were a potpourri of nationalities, cultures and customs. Most of us, after all, came from someplace else originally, and some of us still bear the stamp of our origin in our speech or our mode of dress. In any major city you are likely to find many of us banded together in our own little communities where we can be with others who share our values, customs and viewpoint on life. That all changed this week.

Today, the United States is comprised of Americans. And each of those Americans is a warrior with a terrible determination too bring to justice those who will not or cannot learn to live in a civilized society. To do that we may have to walk a path we prayed never to walk again, the path to war. We hope our journey along this path is a short one. We hope the extermination of these vermin infesting our global community is swift and decisive. We long for the day when we can put down our war lance and return to our peaceful lives in beauty and harmony. It is so.